NYIT: Department of Physician Assistant Studies

Physician assistants are educated in areas of basic medical science and clinical disciplines. Physician assistants are trained in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology and surgery, as well as to the concepts of behavioral medicine and psychiatry. In addition, physician assistants are educated in pharmacotherapeutics; health maintenance; ambulatory, emergency and long term care, which provide the breadth of educational preparation needed to carry out the responsibilities of a physician assistant.

Overview of the physician assistant program
New York Institute of Technology's (NYIT) physician assistant (PA) program was initially designed as a four-year program leading to the bachelor’s degree. Based on a number of professional issues including the premise that the education of the physician assistant student has always been at the graduate level the NYIT PA program has transitioned to a master’s degree program beginning in September 2005. The Association of Physician Assistant Programs estimates that most programs in the country are currently awarding a master’s degree or transitioning to a master’s program and the majority of students entering physician assistant programs have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Students entering the NYIT Master of Science degree PA program are required to have a bachelor’s degree with a strong emphasis in science and mathematics or be in the NYIT BS to MS program. All students entering the professional master’s degree program must show evidence of proficiency in the sciences and have completed prerequisite courses in biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, math, and psychology. The three-year (30 months on-site) professional program, is divided into two didactic years and one clinical year. The design and sequencing of the didactic coursework is structured to provide students with incremental steps toward the development of their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. The professional phase of the curriculum is designed to provide a basis for the study of clinical medicine. The key basic and behavioral science courses are Gross Anatomy & Physiology, Clinical Pathophysiology, The PA Profession, Behavioral Medicine, and Epidemiology & Interpretation of the Medical Literature.

The fall and spring semesters of the first professional year introduce the student to the actual practice of medicine by providing lectures in clinical medicine. Clinical Pathophysiology and Pharmacology I & II are coordinated with Clinical Medicine I and II so that all three courses have a simultaneous instructional focus on the same body systems. This serves to enhance and reinforce student learning of the presented materials. The Clinical Skills I & II and Clinical Laboratory Medicine courses provide students with the acquisition of physical diagnosis skills and the use of laboratory procedures needed for formulating a diagnosis and monitoring a patient’s status.

The transition to clinical clerkships is preceded by the second-year didactic courses that provide students with those skills that are essential for the clinical clerkship phase. Students receive instruction during the second year specifically designed to prepare them for clinical clerkships. These courses include Health Promotion & Disease Prevention, Emergency Medicine, Clinical Decision Making, Clinical Skills III and Outpatient Medicine. In Disease Prevention and Health Promotion students learn to further apply behavior modification skills learned first in Behavioral Medicine so as to deliver appropriate patient education. The course in Emergency Medicine is delivered after all of the Clinical Medicine lectures have been presented. Students learn to deal specifically with medical and surgical emergencies and receive certification in basic and advanced cardiac life support.